The form of psychological attributes - monism, dualism, 'physical dualism'?
Ben Colagiuri
Given the central aim of this group, i.e to explore whether the type
of measuremnt possible in the physical sciences is also possible in
the social sciences (and if so, how it can be achieved), it seems
crucial to define, or at least demarcate, the content of the social
sciences that we would like to measure in this way. In a number of
other posts, it seems that 'psychological attributes' are the primary
target.
But what are 'psychological attributes'? What 'form' do they take? And
what 'laws' do they conform to?
This issue was touched upon in the recent (and ongoing) discussion
"Why meausre?", iniated by Aaro Toomela. Here Aaro stated: "I think
also that there is anough evidence to reject reductionism; the world
of psyche is not covered by physical laws (I am not opposing mind to
physical world here, I suggest that there is psychic part of the
physical universe which is described by a set of principles that does
not apply to all the physical world). Therefore science of psyche
should reject measurement and mathematical methods; by becoming "real
quantitative science" psychology ceases to be psychology."
To me, the proposition that there is a "psychic part of the universe
which is described by a set of principles that does not apply to all
the physical world" is questionable as it seems to replace mind-body
dualism with psychic/physical-physical/physical dualism (which I will
dub 'physical dualism' for simplicities sake) and in doing so raises
similar problems to mind-body dualism, such as, how does the psychic
component of the physical world impact on the purely physical
component of the physical world (and vice versa).
This question "What is a psychological attribute?" is obviously a very
big question and definition of even simple phenomena can be debated
for hours on end without resolution. Nonetheless, I would be
interested to hear other members' opinions on this issue and to gage
whether there is any general consensus, particularly with reference to
the form of these attributes (i.e. 'physical', non-'phsycial').
For instance, I adopt a monist approach and believe that there is
single realm in which phenomena can be studied at different frames of
reference. For example, a physicist may investigate how enegery is
transfered as part of a light wave. A phsyiologist may investigate how
and where light waves produce neural activity in a human brain. A
psychologist may investigate how a human behaves in response to
different visual (light wave producing) stimuli. Thus, I do not think
that a hypothesis that psychological attributes are measureble in the
same way that measurement in the physical sciences is illogical on the
basis of them existing in different realms (though I do doubt whether
such a hypothesis is true for other reasons, at least for the time
being).
Cheers,
Ben
Andrew Kyngdon
Welcome to the forum.
To me, there is no compelling evidence in support of other realms existing apart from the one of space and time that we ourselves live in. So I agree with you that the mind does not exist in its own realm.
I would argue that a psychological attribute is either a property of some kind or a relation between properties. Given the relatively poor state of descriptive, psychological theory, it is hard to identify whether or not any given psychological attribute is of either kind. Take the concept of attitude for example. Are attitudes just evaluative beliefs held towards a social issue of some kind, or are they are a relation of some kind between an individual's personality traits and such beliefs? Are attitudes expressed by "extroverts" stronger or harsher than exactly the same attitude expressed by a more demure person?
In another example, I work for company that created a psychometric system for the assessment of reading ability. It advances that individual differences in the ability to read continuous prose text are caused by individual differences in verbal working memory capacity and vocabulary. The larger both of these are, the better a person's performance on a reading test.
It must be stressed that it is *individual differences* in reading ability that are hypothesised to have such causes, not the capacity for being able to read per se. Cognitive science research suggests that reading does not consist of homogenous cognitive processes. The famous Australian cognitive psychologist Max Coltheart has proposed his the dual route cascaded model of reading aloud (Coltheart, Curtis, Atkins & Heller, 1993). He even claims to have evidence that his theory can even explain the differences which exist between the reading disabilities of phonological and surface dyslexia (e.g. Coltheart, Rastle, Perry, Langdon & Ziegler, 2001). A competing theory is the parallel distributed processing model of Seidenberg & McClelland (1989).
My concern with these cognitive theories, and most of cognitive science presently, is that is based on the hypothesis of inner, representational entities existing in the human mind. Based on the work of J.R. Maze and Joel Michell, I believe there are big logical problems with this hypothesis. I have another concern too with connectionism, in that there is no neurological correlate to the "backpropagation" algorithm.
So yes, addressing the question of "What is a psychological attribute?" calls for more descriptive theory than what exists at present. Like Paul, I believe that behavioural scientists should be putting more effort into developing such theories than what they currently are.
Thankyou for your post Ben and I hope that you continue to contribute.
Cheers,
Andrew
Andrew Kyngdon, PhD
MetaMetrics, Inc.
www.lexile.com
My website: https://sites.google.com/site/drandrewkyngdon/home
Measurement Forum: http://groups.google.com/group/talking-measurement
Hi all,
Cheers,
Ben
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aaro
good questions!
On Monday, March 21, 2011 9:11:46 AM UTC+2, Ben Colagiuri wrote:
But what are 'psychological attributes'? What 'form' do they take? And
what 'laws' do they conform to?
This issue was touched upon in the recent (and ongoing) discussion
"Why meausre?", iniated by Aaro Toomela. Here Aaro stated: ... ...
To me, the proposition that there is a "psychic part of the universe
which is described by a set of principles that does not apply to all
the physical world" is questionable as it seems to replace mind-body
dualism with psychic/physical-physical/physical dualism (which I will
dub 'physical dualism' for simplicities sake) and in doing so raises
similar problems to mind-body dualism, such as, how does the psychic
component of the physical world impact on the purely physical
component of the physical world (and vice versa).
This question cannot be answered in my opinion, because it contains assumptions that are not justified. Your implicit assumption here is that causality is a cause-->effect sequence. In some very limited sense, causality is also this; but systemis unedrstanding (at least the structural-systemic one) views causality in more complex terms. Gestalt theory, for instance (this theory is NOT what you find in resent psychology textbooks) saw one fundamental problem in unedrstanding emergence of novel qualities. According to this (and more elaborated by Vygotsky school) approach, novel forms emerge when certain elements or components become into specific relationships; then whole with entirely novel qualities emerges. Quite primitive way to say it is that whole is more than sum of its parts. This expression is, of course, fundamentally misleading, there is no question of additive properties of elements. Famous example discussed by Gestaltists was that of the molecule of water; water has properties that do not characterize its elements, hydrogen and oxygen.
What is important here is that when the elements become into relationships and constitute a hierarchically higher-order whole, the properties of these elements change as well. Some relatively recent accounts of this kind of causality have called it 'downward causation' which is quite unsophisticated attempt to translate structural-systemic causality into language of cause-->effect causation. What happens is not bidirectional causation but rather simultaneous causation; emergence of the new whole is the process of organization where the change of the constituents is simultaneous to the emergence of the whole.
So, psychical does not 'impact' physical; rather, the properties of the physical (and biological) elements change when the psyche emerges. For instance, none of the molecules in my body have an ability to make a decision to answer to your post. None of them would start typing an answer outside my whole organism. But as parts of the whole organism, they participate in creation of this answer without becoming nonphysical; all the physical laws are still operative, but additional biological and psychological principles that characterize "me" allow these particular physical objects, molecules, to participate in immensely more complex psychological processes.
This question "What is a psychological attribute?"
So, psychological attributes are those that characterize organisms which are able to maintain purposefully their equlibrium as wholes (this is definition of life I deduced from Anokhin's theory) on the basis of individual experiences.
Best
Aaro